The Very Moment I'm Aware I'm Alive
by free-pirate
Summary: Dean is pretty sure he hasn't had a nightmare since before Sam hit puberty. Angst.


**Author's Notes:** 800 words. Written for spn25 - Theme Set #5: Evocation. Enabled by **starwilson** and looked over by **ladyrisa** . Happy Birthday, **kateg123** ! I'm afraid I have nothing better to give you. For shame. :( PH33R THE ANGST. Also, of course I didn't write this purely for the sake of using my new angsticon. Seriously. huff Title from Snow Patrol's Chocolate. Before I make notes longer than the story...

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Dean is pretty sure he hasn't had a nightmare since before Sam hit puberty. Therefore, he's understandably confused when he starts having them on a regular basis.

Not 'them'. It. Because it's always the same one, with the subtle details shifted. Which should say something, but all Dean can think about when he wakes up is Sam, how cold he is, how different and peaceful and broken he looks.

But Sam is right there, in the next bed over. And even if Dean will deny it in the morning, he gets up to check that his brother is still there. Then he can go back to his own bed and fall back to sleep.

It happens often enough that he starts to expect it. But he sleeps anyway, partly because he doesn't want Sam to suspect anything and partly because he's just so damn tired he can convince himself it won't happen.

But it doesn't work, because no matter how much he wants to just sleep, it plays back to him like a video recording.

The look on Sam's face when he falls to his knees, the rusty knife buried hilt-deep in his spinal column. Relief-turned-surprise, Dean's name dying on his lips as his mouth goes slack.

Dean can't keep track of what he's saying, only knows that he's trying to keep Sam with him. But Sam's blood is on his hands, and the wound is deep, unfixable. He holds onto Sam even as _Sam _is slipping away; as he watches the light leave his little brother's eyes, he feels as though he's the one that's been stabbed and wishes that he were.

He doesn't know how long he kneels there on the muddy ground. The absence of the rise and fall of Sam's breathing against him is a gaping hole, and Dean feels like he's betraying Sam. Because Dean is still here, as much as he doesn't, at this moment, want to be, and he's still breathing when Sam isn't.

But then Sam is stirring in his arms. Still not breathing, but moving, and Dean's seen enough to know that this isn't how it happens.

"Sammy..." he tries, rasps, stumbling over the word like it's both another wound and a bandage at once.

Sam just turns in Dean's arms, breaks Dean's grip on his shoulders. His mouth twists into some sort of sneer that shouldn't have a place on Sam's face. Dean's arms fall to his sides, hang limply there like he's lost feeling in them. He probably has, but the look on his brother's face makes everything else irrelevant.

"You let me die,"his voice is low, dangerous, accusatory. Not like Dean's Sammy at all. "You're supposed to keep me safe. And you let me die."

"But... Sam, I can fix it, I swear. I'll make you better."

Sam laughed, but the sound was deep and devoid of amusement. "You can't and you know it. Because eventually, when you're done 'fixing me', it's just going to happen again. And you know there's nothing you can do to stop it."

Dean couldn't think of what to say, didn't know how to respond to how Sam had a point. But Sam (or not-Sam) decides that apparently this isn't enough.

"As for me," he stands up suddenly, brushes his knees off and looks down at Dean. "As for me, I'm not so sure that I want to be stuck with saving you."

Despite the dark spot of blood across the back of his jacket, Sam turns and walks away. Leaves Dean kneeling in the mud with Sam's blood all over his hands.

"Sam..."

The sound is small, broken, but it's what finally snaps Dean out of his nightmare. He sits bolt-upright and stock-still, panting as though he's gone a few rounds with a werewolf and then been chased halfway across the state of Texas by a rabid Black Dog.

The room is cold, and his sweat sticks to his skin and cools there. He looks at his hands, shaking slightly, and can still see the blood soaking them, crimson and vivid, though he can barely see in the dark.

"Dean?" Sam's voice is soft, thick with sleep, and Dean sighs, falling back onto the hard, standard-issue motel pillows with a muffled thump from the mattress.

"Go back to sleep, Sammy." Silently, he commends himself for keeping the shake out of his voice. Sam grunts, and his breathing evens out again. Dean rubs a hand down his face and tries to get comfortable, but Sam's sneer seems burned into his skull, engraved on the back of his eyelids.

It's nearly dawn when he rolls out of bed and throws some clothes on, speeding to the nearest open-all-night convenience store and trying to lose his nightmare in a cheap cup of burnt coffee.

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